philosophy.lander.edu                                  

The Principle of Charity in Philosophy

Abstract: The principle of charity is a presumption wherein our own preconceptions regarding most any form of discourse are temporarily set aside in the endeavor to secure a coherent, rational, and respectful understanding of the subject prior to its interpretation or evaluation. Various related versions of the principle are described here with illustrative examples. In practice, the principle of charity is a somewhat idealized guide to translate, interpret, or understand problematic or difficult discourse involved in a variety of types of communication.

Contents

1. The Principle of Charity[1] is a Methodological Presumption

   The principle of charity is implemented in order to understand a point of view in its clearest, most credible form before subjecting that view to appraisal.

   Understanding often requires interpretation, and the development of a principle of charity is thought necessary to help establish dependable and accurate interpretation and translation.

   Charitable interpretation is pragmatically approached differently in different kinds of discourse and argumentation since their context, purpose, and mode of presentation involve different kinds of engagement. Understanding a point of view often requires interpreting that point of view.

   In some forms of discourse, charity reduces simply to proper respect for an author and a basic fairness of interpretation of the author's work.

   
   

   1. Central Elements of the Principle of Charity:
      
      Not all kinds of discourse require application of the principle of charity. However, the application of the principle of charity is sometimes necessary in order to develop a dependably accurate interpretation of problematic ideas. When charity is needed for clarity of meaning in argumentation or deliberation, general guidelines for its application often include the following elements:

      1. While temporarily suspending our own beliefs, we actively seek a thoughtful understanding of an exposition, theory, or argument prior to assessing its merits or weaknesses.

      2. We provisionally assume the proposed ideas are true even though our initial reaction might be to find fault with the ideas. Initially, any ambiguity or abstruseness of thought is tolerated in order facilitate a cogent understanding of the presented text.

      3. A preliminary emphasis is placed on pursuing understanding rather rather than focusing on inconsistencies or confounding ideas.

      4. We seek to understand the ideas in their most cogent form and actively attempt to extract an accurate interpretation in the effort to resolve, if possible, contradictions. If more than one view is presented, we choose the most cogent emerging perspective — and, when possible, confirm the key ideas interactively with the presenter.

      5. Whenever translations or interpretations depend upon unclear contextual and background suppositions, some indeterminacy and uncertainty is unavoidable.

      6. Once any irrelevancies are dismissed and the exposition or argument be reliably understood, only then can the resulting account can be properly understood and assessed.

      7. Some academics believe that there is also a moral component to the principle of charity for some areas of inquiry, namely to presume the discourse under consideration resulted from a rational and competent proponent. A sense of good will or decency toward the author and the author's discourse ought be present.[2]

   2. The principle of charity is a methodological principle whereby ideas or arguments are critiqued only after adequate understanding is achieved.

      1. This initial step of temporarily setting aside our own beliefs and granting that the proposed ideas might be true is provisional and, to a certain extent, idealized.

      2. Hence, assuming the subject matter merits clarification,[3] we should then try to seek understanding as if we had no preconceived notions about the subject. We should attempt to be open, attentive, and receptive toward the ideas presented.

      3. This attitude, if maintained, can help free, to a large extent, our conditioned and habituated minds so that we are more likely to impartially assimilate and understand antagonistic or unfamiliar ideas.

      4. Acting in accordance with the principle of charity is typically essential if we are genuinely interested in comprehending difficult and unusual ideas.



2. Some Approaches to Interpretation of Discourse

   Various methods of explanation or interpretation of discourse often include the common features discussed below. These methods are emphasized in varying degrees for the following different kinds of discourse: deliberation, arbitration, conversation, dialogue, discussion, and argumentation.

   The main emphases of interpretation for these kinds of discourse include the following styles: textual, intentional, purposive, and integrative (a combination of the textual and purposive modes of interpretation).

   1. The textual, representational, formalist or dialogical interpretation of the principle stresses the semantic meaning and propositional truth-claims of the objective issues in the subject being studied.

      A textualist interpretation concentrates on the ordinary language semantic context even if the local context conflicts with the more general contextual purpose. Under this interpretation, the meaning of the local text should not be altered even though the true intention or purpose of their general intent can be, at times, surmised as incoherent and inaccurate.

      The whole point of the textual interpretation is to clarify accurately the ideas or the argument presented without any attempt to improve, simplify, or elucidate the points presented. So, in this way, the textual approach avoids the straw man fallacy and is not so much as an interpretation as it is a restatement of the plain meaning without any effort to find and resolve evident confusions or inconsistencies. Textual interpretation seeks complete fidelity. The following examples are suggestive of the textual approach to interpretation:

      1. In legal theory, with respect to textualism or the “plain meaning” rule, Justice Anthony Scalia writes,

         “The text is the law, and it is the text that must be observed. … A text should not be construed strictly, and it should not be construed leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means.”[4]

         Under the so-called literal rule, a judge foregoes consideration of consequences or external legislative intent and interprets a statute in accordance with its manifest ordinary meaning.

      2. In literary theory, textualism is reflected to some extent in the New Critical Movement. John Crowe Ransom's doctrine is “criticism must become more scientific, or precise and systematic”[5], and “the autonomy of the work itself [is seen] as existing for its own sake.”[6]:

         The first law to be prescribed to criticism … is that it shall be objective, shall cite the nature of the object rather than its effects upon the subject.[7]

         The same approach is suggested by Cleanth Brooks in his interpretation of Wordsworth's “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” as “an object in itself” or “as an independent poetic structure, even to the point of forfeiting the light which his letters, his notes, and his other poems throw on difficult points.”[8] Or, in expressing a similar idea for the proper interpretation of poetry, Archibald MacLeish opines, “A poem should not mean but be.”[9]

      3. In philosophy, most often the textual approach to understanding a point of view or an argument is at best a provisional approach. As will be discussed below, philosophical interpretation emphasizes coherence and truth of the viewpoint as determined in the context of its presentation.

      4. Frequent Disadvantage of the Textualist Approach: A major fault with the textualist approach to the principle of charity is that a literal interpretation of the meaning of a passage is often a result of a cognitive biases of an interpreter — any two individuals will, on a particular occasion disagree over what is literally evident in the text in question. In his rejection of the textualist or formalist interpretation legal theorist Allan Hutchinson writes:

         “Under the guise of valid and impersonal interpretation, a textualist approach smuggles in surreptitiously through the back door that which it ceremoniously denies entry at the front door — the personal preferences of the reader or the judge.”[10]

         Without the historical context of early Greek philosophy, consider how a contemporary scientific realist (who holds that reality is composed of the concrete objects of empirical science in the physical world which are known by the scientific method and inference to the best explanation) is to textually understand Platonic realist (who holds that reality is composed of abstract objects of a transcendent realm which are known by intellectual intuition or a priori reasoning).

   2. The intentional, hermeneutical, exegetical or deictical method of interpretation accents internal, intertextual contemplative meanings of sentences conveying some aspect of value recognition such as the intention of the text.

      Neither understanding nor contextual truth can be derived from using a method or by using criteria. Awareness of the author's objective and historical circumstances facilitates discovery of the textual meaning and often can be determined in the same manner as reasonable persons resolve difficulties in everyday life. On this intentional approach, textual ambiguity can be frequently resolved through contextually subjective and surmised historical intent — not simply by semantic evidence.

      1. In legal theory, with the intentional approach the meaning of the text of the law is elucidated by awareness of the intention of the legislators who framed the law. The interpreter seeks to understand the historical intention of the source. E.g. when a statute can be seen as obscure or ambiguous. Jurist Theodore Sedgwick allows:

         “[T]he only object of the judicial investigation … is to ascertain the intention of the legislature which framed the statute.”[11]

         And Justice Lurton provides another example of intentional interpretation when he writes in Pickett v. United States:

         “The reason of the law, as indicated by its general terms, should prevail over its letter, when the plain purpose of the act will be defeated by strict adherence to its verbiage.” [emphasis mine][12]

         On this approach, an accurate understanding of a statement in discourse can often only be accessed from the context of the discourse, itself.

      2. In literary theory, Stanley Eugene Fish's early criticism of the New Criticism adds an additional intentional aspect to literalism:

         “The stylisticians [i.e., the textualists] proceed as if there were observable facts that could first be described and then interpreted. What I am suggesting is that an interpreting entity, endowed with purposes and concerns, is, by virtue of its very operation, determining what counts as the facts to be observed, and, moreover, that since this determining is not a neutral marking out of a valueless area, but an extension of an already existing field of interests, it is an interpretation.” [italics in original][13]

         Fish notes that this judgment obscures the distinction between description and interpretation such that “linguistic and textual facts, rather than being the objects of interpretation are its products.”[14]

      3. An example from philosophy is Friedrich Schleiermacher's “hermeneutic circle of understanding” where ”each particular can only be understood by the general, of which it is part, and vice versa.”[15]

         Gadamer transforms Schleiermacher's hermeneutic textual interpretation by further emphasizing the necessity of a contextual understanding of the continuity of underlying historical conditions:

         “[U]nderstanding becomes a scholarly task … necessary to work out … as a hermeneutical situation. Every encounter with tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of a tension between the text and the present. The hermeneutic task consists in not covering up this tension … but in consciously bringing it out.[16]

         So Gadamer rejects the notion that works of the past are understandable solely in terms of present understanding.

      4. In argumentation, Michael Scriven, describing his application of the principle of charity, addresses the necessity of intentional understanding:

         “[W]e could shoot the writer down for having said something that doesn't follow or isn't strictly true, it may be more charitable to reinterpret the passage slightly in order to make more ‘sense’ out of it, that is, to make it mean something that a sensible person would be more likely to have really meant.”[17]

         However, Scriven's application has been criticized on the grounds that the reinterpretation as an improved reconstruction is likely to be an interpretation which changes an originally poor argument into an acceptable argument. The charitable correction would constitute a mistranslation of the original passage.

      5. Frequent Disadvantage of the Intentional or Contextual Interpretation: Professor of Law Allan Hutchinson points out:

         “Whereas a text's meaning is what its earlier writer meant and is synonymous with the author's intention, a text's significance is what the later reader makes out of that meaning and so, unlike a text's meaning, can change with historical circumstance and personal predilection. Accordingly, the intentionalist approach assumes that any interpretation for the text must comport with the explicit, implicit, or reconstructed intention of its makers, even if that intention is to create an ambiguous or indeterminate text.[18]

         In other words, an intentionalist approach is likely to reflect a bias on the part of the interpreter since the author's intent can only be circumstantially inferred.

   3. The purposive mode of interpretation emphasizes achievement of the background aim or goal of the source based on extra-textual evidence. If the expressed text deviates from the expressed intent of the text, the purpose of the text takes precedence. In this style of interpretation, the purpose and goal of the source is essential for understanding the context and meaning of the source.

      1. In legal theory, with respect to statutory interpretation in legal theory, purposive interpretation can reflect judicial activism, as when Ronald Dworkin writes:

         “Of course constitutional law is limited by the document's text. But we must interpret the text by finding principles that justify it in political morality, and we must test statutes against the text not by abstract semantics but by asking whether the statutes respect those principles.”[19]

         Dworkin,here, is reflecting Judge Learned Hand's statement, “The judge has, by custom, his own proper representative function as an organ of the social will …”[20]

         And, finally, Justice Reed in United States et al. v. American Trucking Ass'ns expresses the purposive interpretation clearly, “[W]hen the plain meaning … [is] ‘plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole’ this Court has followed that purpose, rather than the literal words.”[21]

      2. In literary criticism, the modernist interpretation is “the study of the arts in their social, political, cultural, and intellectual contexts.”[22] So a purposive interpretation eschews plain and ordinary meanings in order to emphasize the text's effects and intents, as in the use of irony where a speaker's intention is in variance from the statements or in romanticism where, according to William Wordsworth, the intention is “to produce excitement in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure.”[23]

      3. In psychology, with respect to the interpretation of dreams, Freud states, “That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns out to be the fulfillment of a wish, must be proved afresh for every case by means of an analysis.”[24] Thus, on Freud's theory, the interpretation of a dream requires extra-textual evidence beyond its literal presentation.

      4. In philosophy translation often depends not only upon the literal content of the original exposition but also upon the context in which it appears. The early analytic philosopher Gottlob Frege points out the truth of a statement often depends upon the context of its interpretation:

         ”T]he content of a sentence often goes beyond the thought expressed by it. But the opposite often happens too; the mere mere wording, which can be made permanent by writing or the gramophone, does not suffice for the expression of the thought … [T]he mere wording, as it can be preserved in writing, is not the complete expression of the thought; the knowledge of certain conditions accompanying the utterance, which are used as of expressing the thought, is needed for us to grasp the thought correctly.”[25]

         And, as well, philosopher Saul Kripke points out any account of beliefs must account for different interpretations of referential and attributive uses. Specifically, he points out a simple textual translation can fail to maintain the truth value and meaning of a statement when a specific expression refers to different things in different contexts:

         “[O]ur normal practices of interpretation and attribution of belief are subjected to the greatest possible strain, perhaps to the point of breakdown [with respect to translation of a context-dependent reference]. So is the notion of the content of someone's assertion, the proposition it expresses. In the present state of our knowledge, I think it would be foolish to draw any conclusion, positive or negative, about substitutivity [of these expressions].”[26]

         Additionally, Richard Grandy's interpretative principle of humanity scraps the textualist approach by emphasizing the maximization of intelligibility of a viewpoint by emphasizing the “obvious truths” (logical and empirical truths) having to do with our own understanding.[27]

      5. A final contextual example of interpretation in philosophy is Hegel's declaration that contradiction is not an error of thought but a characteristic of concepts or things in that something is what it is as determined by its limits — beyond that limit is the existence of something different, which is its “other,” its negation. In Aristotelian logic, a statement and its negation cannot both be true. However, when explaining this law of the excluded middle, Hegel divulges in his Logic:

         “Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world: and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is unthinkable.”[28]

         This passage when interpreted literally seems to imply that we can think of a statement as being true and false at the same time, and critics of Hegel have indeed argued this point. However, in the overall context of the Logic, Hegel is normally interpreted as meaning a contradiction is not an error in thought but is the natural process whereby an object evolves over time into something else.

      6. Frequent Disadvantage to the Purposive or Goal-Directed Approach to Interpretation: If a text is principally interpreted in terms of an external purpose, then it is likely to result in an alteration of original intent and textual significance. From a historical point of view, a purposive interpretation risks distorting parts of the text to fit an interpreter's current mindset.

   4. The integrative interpretation reconstructs a representational (literal) emphasis to conform with hermeneutic and purposive interpretations. The text and the purpose of the text are both regarded significant since understanding the text entails understanding the context of the text. The integrative mode of interpretation assimilates the previous versions of interpretation.

      1. With respect to legal theory, Justice David Souter writes in Johnson v. United States:

         “[I]n relying on an uncommon sense of the word, we are departing from the rule of construction that prefers ordinary meaning … But this is exactly what ought to happen when the ordinary meaning fails to fit the text and when the realization of clear congressional policy … is in tension with the result that customary interpretive rules would deliver.” [emphasis mine].[29]

         Justice Souter rejects the notion that “constitutional law lies there in the Constitution waiting for a judge to read it fairly.”[30]

      2. And also with regard to literary interpretation, M.A.R. Habib writes:

         A rhetorical approach to a text must concern itself not only with the author's intentions but also with all the features implicated in the text as a persuasive or argumentative use of language: the structure of the text as a means of communication, the nature and response of the audience or reader, the text's relation to other discourses, and the social and political contexts of the interaction between author, text, and reader, as well as a historicist concern with the differences between a modern reception of the text and its original performative conditions. In short, a rhetorical approach views a literary text not as an isolated act (merely recording, for example, the private thoughts of an author) but as a performance in a social context.[31]

         Habib is embracing a comprehensive historical and contextual interpretation.

      3. In psychology, Roy Schafer describes a principle of neutrality as part of an integrative approach to interpretation in a clinical setting including these aspects:

         “[1] The neutral analyst [attempts] to avoid both the imposition of his or her own personal values on the analysand and the unquestioning acceptance of the analysand's initial value judgments.” [6]

         [2] [“The analyst]will tend to work honestly, bravely, patiently, and nonjudgmentally. [48]

         [3] “[T]he analyst should not take sides in the analysand's conflictual … courses of action.” [167]

         [4] “[T]he analyst does not unilaterally try to make anything happen.” [167]

         [5] “[T]he analyst must always be careful not to impose his or her value judgments on the analysand … [168]

         [6] “[T]he analyst appreciate[s] the extraordinary difficulties that stand in the way of significant change … change in one or more major respects is not routinely to be expected … [168]

         [7] “[N]eutrality … implies total repudiation of any adversarial conception” but regarding behavior as “unintelligible behavior that requires understanding.” [168][32]

         Application of neutrality, as also for charity, is, of course, the goal of the interpretative process and not a description of the process itself.

      4. In philosophy, sometimes an integrative interpretation that goes beyond mere charity to include the mindset of the interpreter. For example, Paul Ricoeur writes:

         “To interpret … is to appropriate here and now the intention of the text … the intended meaning of the text is not essentially the presumed intention of the author, the lived experience of the writer, but rather what the text means for whoever complies with its injunction. … to bring out the structure, that is, the internal relations of dependence which constitute the statics of the text …” [emphasis mine][33]

         Ricoeur's approach is similar to Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic interpretation which brings together textual examination and integration of historical-difference, context, purpose, and intention of both author and interpreter:

         “Part of real understanding, however, is that we regain the concepts of a historical past in such a way that they also include our own comprehensive of them.”[34]

         This emergent integration is what Gadamer terms, “the fusion of horizons.”

      5. Frequent Disadvantage of the Integrative Approach to Interpretation: As the method of integrative interpretation includes the intentional, contextual, and purposive approaches, it becomes liable to the difficulties already listed above. Specifically, the integrative approach is frequently criticized on the grounds of the skewing of objective meaning to fit external historical circumstances and the interpreter's personal subjective impressions of current cultural circumstances. The danger is that present-day concerns can be covertly read into discourse changing the original context of the text.



3. Influential Versions of the Principle of Charity

   In recent philosophy, most versions of the principle of charity begin with W.V.O. Quine's recognition of the indeterminacy in the radical translation of an unknown language.

   Two of the most influential versions of the principle include Donald Davidson's principle of rational accommodation whereby we attempt to maximize truth, and Richard Grandy's principle of humanity by which we attempt to maximize intelligibility.

   Daniel Dennett proposes a projective principle along the same lines whereby we assume the author of the discourse to be interpreted has a similar mental state (i.e., beliefs and attitudes) toward what is said as our own mental stance.

   1. Willard Van Orman Quine's version of the principle derives from a thought experiment of radical translation: he describes a proposed attempt to understand a native's unknown language by means of behavioral linguistic observation rather than a straightforward normative evaluation,

      “[A]ssertions startingly false on the face of them are likely to turn on hidden differences of languages. … The common sense behind the maxim is that one's interlocutor's silliness, beyond a certain point, is less likely than bad translation — or, in the domestic case, linguistic divergence.”[35]

      Quine recognizes that if different viewpoints appear to deviate greatly in coherence and truthfulness, then the view under consideration still remains subject to the interpreter's own notion of truth and logic.

      1. In order to translate problematic sentences meaningfully, Quine states, “Better translation imposes our logic upon them …”[36] Yet, he also recognizes that different incompatible translations can equally well reflect the linguistic behavior of a native.

      2. Quine cites N.L. Wilson as his source for the principle of charity.[37]

   2. Donald Davidson's position differs from Quine in that he attempts to elucidate charity in interpretation of, rather than translation of, verbal expression. He further stresses that the intentional aspect of a proponent's linguistic behavior must also generally accord with the interpreter's mental outlook, unlike Quine who mainly emphasizes empirical language use.

      1. Davidson points out that the principle of charity (or, in his words, the principle of rational accommodation)[38] should include the desired attitudes as well as the beliefs of the proponent in order to “maximize” sense and “optimize” agreement for the coherence and factual correspondence of what is said.

      2. According to Davidson, one form of the principle of charity is the application of the principle of coherence which ferrets out “logical consistency in the thought of the speaker,” and the application of another form is the principle of correspondence which assumes “the speaker to be responding to the same features of the world that [we] would be responding to under similar circumstances.”[39]

      3. Davidson maintains both coherence of thought and correspondence to things are essential:

         The policy of rational accommodation or charity … is the only policy available if we want to understand other people.[emphasis mine]”[40]

         In general, Davidson tends to value the preservation of truth above the consistency of the whole system of belief — “perfect consistency, he states, is not to be expected.”[41] However, he emphasizes three main aspects of the principle:

         1. Initially accredit the author with true belief: ceteris paribus,[42] the interpreter initially assumes the author believes the statements true, and the statements are, in fact, true.[43]

         2. Expect the author to be rational: ceteris paribus, the interpreter initially assumes most, if not all, of the author's understanding of the contextual support for his views is true.[44]

         3. Presume the author shares basic human values: ceteris paribus, the interpreter initially assumes most of the author's beliefs accord with the interpreter's viewpoint. [45]

      4. Difficulties with Davidson's principle of accommodation would seem to arise first with occasions where many significant differences in view occur and second where significant disagreement cannot at all be meaningfully interpreted.

         1. If the proponent's viewpoint contravenes an interpreter's fundamental understanding of the world, the principle of accommodation (i.e., that the proponent's view could be the interpreter's view under similar circumstances) could not be maintained unless the interpreter can temporarily suspend that fundamental understanding in order to grasp the proponent's stance. E.g., if we take Davidson's accommodation principle literally, apparently a distinct ethical theory advanced by an ethical relativist would be difficult to be sensibly accommodated by an interpreter who advances an absolutist view.

         2. In other words, on Davidson's principle of accommodation, a relativistic proponent convinced of the legitimacy of a plurality of ethical standpoints apparently could not be accommodated by an interpreter whose fundamental understanding of the world is ethical absolutism unless the absolutist interpreter could suspend totally belief while interpreting the ethical relativist. But such a proceeding would violate the principle of accommodation. David Wong, for example recognizes the possibility of moral differences arising from “brute confrontation” which can be “mutually unintelligible ways of life.”[46]

      5. Following Davidson, some more recent accounts of the principle of charity agree with his early statement of the principle:

         “We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimises agreement (this includes room … for differences of opinion).”[47]

         However, most current accounts follow Davidson's revision of his earlier notion of “maximizing agreement” to a more plausible “optimizing agreement” so as to emphasize additionally values, intentions, and desires — all the while, recognizing that agreement in belief will be only “as far as possible” since the recognition of many differing beliefs may be a necessary point for understanding.

   3. The humanity principle as articulated by Richard Grandy is that we should initially interpret a different philosophical point of view in accordance with the assumption that the interrelation of belief and reality being expressed is similar to our own.[48] Quine's and Davidson's views seem to be in general accord with Grandy's principle.[49]

   4. Daniel Dennett set out his version of Anatol Rapoport's rules of charity when criticizing an opponent in a debate:

      “1. You should attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, ‘Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way.’

      2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

      3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

      4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.”[50]

      Dennett adds to these rules of charity, his projective principle:

      “[O]ne should attribute to [the person's whose view we are attempting to understand] … the in those propositional attitudes one supposes one would have oneself circumstances.”[51]

      The imposition of interpreter bias implicit in adopting Dennett's projective principle, (also very much like that implied in Ricoeur's and Gadamer's hermeneutic approach) extends beyond the goals of accuracy and fidelity of the principle of charity to a predilected reconstruction in the interpreter's image.



4. Context Dependent Applications of the Principle of Charity

   The original context and purpose of an expressed viewpoint frames what aspects of the principle of charity ought to be employed in order to accomplish a trustworthy interpretation prior to subjecting the view finally to examination, analysis, and evaluation.

   E.g., the context and purpose of the types of expository discourse include debate, dialectical inquiry, persuasive appeal, disquisition, argumentation, statutory law, and so forth.

   1. If the purpose of the restatement to clarify accurately what is expressed without any alteration of actual meaning, then …

      1. The interpretation restates emotively significant language, euphemisms, idioms, dialect, double talk, and deceptive language without altering literal significance. As Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig write, “Understanding people despite their linguistic foibles is a routine exercise of charity.”[52]

      2. A fair and impartial interpretation can contextually edit discourse for clarity without presuming or questioning the intention of an author.

      3. For instance, when following Davidson's doctrine of rational accommodation, how should we interpret a passage such of this one from Friedrich Nietzsche?

         “What therefore is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms … truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions.”[53]

         In context, Nietzsche seems to be pointing out that “truth” is a human artifact made in order for societal order to exist — that truth arises indirectly through conventions necessary for social stability.

   2. Overemphasis on truth, consistency, personal consonance, and other aspects of the principle of charity can alter the fidelity of interpretation of many types of discourse.

   3. If the imposition of “our logic” is essential for the application of the principle of charity for the purpose of interpretation, then it would seem to limit understanding of points of view which eschew Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction in such areas as varied as, for example, religious language, poetry, and psychotherapy.



5. Examples of Charity Applied Where Coherence and Correspondence Need be Minimized

   The following examples of the limited application of the principle of charity indicate some of uses and possible benefits for the explanation, analysis, and evaluation of diverse beliefs.

   1. Richard P. Feynman writes in his Nobel Prize Lecture about overcoming his reluctance to consider the notion of backward causation in quantum electrodynamics by citing examples from the history of physics:

      “… all physicists know from studying Einstein and Bohr, that sometimes an idea which looks completely paradoxical at first, if analyzed to completion in all detail and in experimental situations, may, in fact, not be paradoxical.” [54]

      One consequence of Einstein's Theory of Relativity is that one twin traveling into space at high-speed will have aged less upon return than the other twin who remains on earth. One consequence of Bohr's model of the atom is that an electron travels in specific quantized orbits at discretely stable energy levels. Feynman is suggesting that insights into conceptual problems can sometimes be had by the interpreter's temporary suspension of deep-seated assumptions.

   2. Dostoevsky discloses in his Notes from Underground the seeming contradiction that what is not in one's own interest may be precisely that which is in one's own interest. This is his interpretation of such an apparent contradiction:

      ”Oh, tell me, who was it first announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble … we all know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests … And what if it so happens that a man's advantage, sometimes not only may, but even must, consists in his desiring in certain cases what is harmful to himself and not advantageous[?][55]

      Through consideration of the seemingly contradictory idea that one's advantage can be what is precisely not in ones advantage, Dostoevsky indirectly discloses the notion of unconscious motivation.

   3. And Quine provides an even more straightforward example of the principle of charity:

      “Consider … the Spaniard with his ‘No hay nada.’ Lovers of paradox may represent him as flouting the law of double negation. Sober translators may reckon ‘no’ and ‘nada’ in this context, as halves of one negative.” [56]

      Again, we have the “halves of one negative” in the answer “No” in response to such a query as “Did you not do your duty?” Is the “No” to be interpreted as, “ No (I did not do my duty)” or “No (I did my duty.)”

   4. In Hinduism, God is sometimes worshiped as a child when a devotee worships Krishna. From this observation, a Christian, for example, might uncharitably be inclined to believe Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. Yet, for the Christian, the notion of the Christ Child could be suggested by the application of the principle of humanity in order to help understand this ideal in Hinduism. Swami Vivekanda writes:

      

      “The next [human representation of the ideal of divine love] is what is known as Vatsalya, loving God not as our Father but as our Child. This may look peculiar, but it is a discipline to enable us to detach all ideas of power from the concept of God. … The child's position is always that of the receiver, and out of love for the child the parents will give up their bodies a hundred times over. a thousand lives they will sacrifice for that one child of theirs, and therefore, God is loved as a child. … [T]he Christian and the Hindu can realize [this idea of God as Child] easily, because they have the baby Jesus and the baby Krishna.”[57]

      The similarity belief and attitudes between Christianity and Hinduism, in this regard, helps remove unnecessary difficulties in interpretation.

   5. The principle of charity with respect to interpretation of an individual's intention is illustrated by psychotherapist Hiam Ginott:

      “On her first visit to kindergarten, while her mother was still with her, Nancy, age five, looked over the painting on the wall and asked loudly, ‘Who made these ugly pictures?’ Nancy's mother was embarrassed. She looked at her daughter disapprovingly, and hastened to tell her, ‘It's not nice to call the pictures ugly when they are so pretty.’

      “The teacher, who understood the meaning of the question, smiled and said, ‘In here you don't have to paint pretty pictures. You can paint mean pictures if you feel like it.’ A big smile appeared on Nancy's face, for now she has the answer to her hidden question, ‘what happens to a girl who doesn't paint so well?’”[58]

      Adults conversing with children, as is also the case when adults conversing with different social groups, often require looking beyond what is said in order to decipher what is meant. Frequently, meanings can only be approached interactively.



6. Principle of Charity Practice Quizzes

   Check your understanding with these quizzes on The Principle of Charity:

   Principle of Charity (html): (Self-grading online)
   Principle of Charity I (pdf): (Answers I)
   Principle of Charity II (pdf): (Answers II)
   
   

Notes

1. “In various versions it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject's sayings.” Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (London, Oxford University Press: 1994), 62. doi: 10.1093/acref/9780198735304.001.0001↩

2. E.g. Michael Scriven, Reasoning (McGraw-Hill, 1976), 72. Also Katharina Stevens, Principle of Charity as a Moral Requirement in Non-Institutionalized Argumentation,” 19 (2020) OSSA Conference Archive, 76. Perhaps, as well, Grice's maxims falling under his Cooperative Principle: H.P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics eds. P. Cole and J. L. Morgan vol. 3 (New York: Academic Press, 1975), 47, or “Logic and Conversation,” in Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 28.↩

3. A practical precondition for applying the principle of charity is sometimes assumed to be that the ideas or argument under investigation be interesting or have merit. For example, Ralph H. Johnson urges with respect to argument evaluation, the passage under examination should be “(i) a fully expressed argument (ii) from a serious arguer (iii) on a serious matter.” Ralph H. Johnson, “Charity Begins at Home,” Informal Logic Newsletter 3 no. 3 (January, 1984), 4-9. doi: 10.22329/il.v3i3.2791

However, this proposed restriction would surely be contentious in many cases. Indeed, normally it's the other way around. An ostensibly confused argument or idea can develop into something meaningful by proceeding with thoughtful restatement in accordance with the principle of charity. That is, oftimes an idea or argument can only be known to be serious or have merit when interpreted in accordance with the principle. Methods of conversational analysis reveal that people natively assume in interactions that what they are told is coherent and meaningful — and this “charity” even extends to computer (and to some extent robot interaction). In conversational interactions with computers, people attempt to find meaning in the system's behavior where there inherently is none. See Lars Christian Jensen, “Using Language Games as a Way to Investigate Interactional Engagement in Human-Robot Interaction,” What Social Robots Can and Should Do: Proceedings of Robophilosophy 2016 in J. Seibt, M. Nøskov, and S. Schack Andersen eds. (Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press, 2016), 78. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-708-5-76

On the one hand, the idea is that one should not prejudge unfamiliar ideas as, for example, John Rosemond does at the beginning of his editorial on gentle parenting:

“When I began reading ‘The 9 Words Parents Should Never Say to Their Kid’ … I was skeptical that essayist Patrick Coleman's point of view would line up with my own, and I wasn't disappointed.” [John Rosemond, “It's OK to Tell Your Kinds the Truth,” Index-Journal 100 no. 6 (March 24, 2018), 7A.]

Rosemond's complete disagreement in belief with advocates of gentle parenting led to an interpretation of ridicule not reflective of Davidson's notion of accommodation:

“According to the gentles, children behave badly only because their adult caregivers have failed to ‘connect’ with them in some essential way (e.g., they have failed to treat said children as equals). It is essential to maintain the charade that children are divine beings sent from heaven to grace us with their immaculate presence.” [Rosemond, “It's OK”]

On the other hand, given that John Rosemond as a knowledgeable child psychologist had previously charitably studied the gentle parenting viewpoint, he would be free to criticize the view.↩

4. Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 22-23. The English courts are, in general, more restrictive—interpreting statutes in accordance with the literal rule (also termed, “the plain meaning rule”) which adheres to the “black letter of the law.” Lord Esher, writes in 1891, “If the words of the Act are clear, you must follow them even though they lead to a manifest absurdity. The Court has nothing to do with the question of whether the legislature has committed an absurdity.” Lord Esher, M.R., “The Court of Appeal, The Queen v. Judge of City of London Court,” in The Law Reports of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting: Queen's Bench Division, ed. A.P. Stone, (London: Wiliam Clowes and Sons, Ltd., 1892), I: 290.↩

5. John Crowe Ransom, The World's Body (1938 New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), 455.↩

6. Ransom, 462.↩

7. Ransom, 463. Also, in poetic criticism, W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. and M.C. Beardsley specifically reject interpretation in terms of the (1) intentional (factors concerning the origin and causes of the composition) and (2) the external affect (factors concerning emotive import or significance). As for the first, “[T]here is no legitimate reason why criticism … should become a dependent of social history or of anthropology”(54), and as for the second: “Vividness is not the thing in the work by which the work may be identified, but the result of a cognitive structure, which is the thing” (italics original) (45-46). [W.K. Wimsatt and M.C. Beardsley, “The Affective Fallacy” The Sewanee Review 57 no. 1 (Winter, 1949), 31-55. JSTOR↩

8. Cleanth Brooks, “Wordsworth and the Paradox of the Imagination,”The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1942), 124.↩

9. Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems, 1917-1982 (Boston: Houghton Miflin Company, 1985), 107. Another textualist was the early-twentieth century English literary critic associated with “close reading ” F. R. Leavis who brought “a focused attentiveness to bear on poems or pieces of prose isolated from their cultural and historical contexts … [attending to] ‘words on the page” rather than to the contexts which produced and surround them.” Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: an Introduction (1983 Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 37, 38.↩

10. Allan C. Hutchinson, It's All in the Game: A Nonfoundationalist Account of Law and Adjudication (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), 90. doi: 10.1215/9780822380429>↩

11. Theodore Sedgwick, A Treatise on the Rules Which Govern the Interpretation and Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law (New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co., 1874), 194.↩

12. Pickett v. United States, 216 U.S. 456, 461 (1910)↩

13. Stanley Eugene Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1980). 95.↩

14 Fish, 9.↩

15. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Writings trans. and ed. Andrew Bowie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 142. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511814945.006↩

16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method 2nd rev. ed. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (1975 London: Continuum, 2004), 305.↩

17. Scriven, Reasoning, 72. Another example of intentional interpretation is the application of the British rule or golden rule which takes over when the literal rule leads to an inconsistency or absurdity: “then we ought so to vary and modify the words used as to avoid that which it certainly could not have been the intention of the Legislature …” Chief Justice Coram Jervis, “Abley v. Dale, 1851,” 20 L.J. C.P. 235 in John James Lowndes, et. al, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Queen's Bench Practice Court (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1852), II:442.↩

18. Hutchinson, 90.↩

19. Ronald Dworkin, “A Bigger Victory Than We Knew” The New York Review of Books, 59 no. 13 (August 16, 2012), 6-12.↩

20. Judge Learned Hand, “The Speech of Justice,” Harvard Law Review 29 no. 6 (March, 1916), 617.doi: 10.2307/1326497↩

21. United States et al. v. American Trucking Associations, Inc. et al. 310 U.S.534, 713 (1940), 543-544 (footnotes omitted). ↩

22. Modernist Studies Association http://msa.press.jhu.edu↩

23. William Wordsworth, The Prose Works of William Wordsworth ed. Alexander B. Grosart (London: Edward Moxon, Son, and Co., 1876), 94.↩

24. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams ed. A.A. Brill (New York: MacMillan, 1913), 123.↩

25. Gottlob Frege, “Thought,” trans. Peter Geach and R.H. Stoothoff The Frege Reader ed. Michael Beaney (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 1977), 331-332.↩

26. Saul A. Kripke, Philosophical Troubles, Collected Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), I: 158↩

27. Grandy 1973, 440.↩

28. G.W.F. Hegel, The Logic of Hegel 2nd ed.(1892 London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 223.↩

29. Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694 (2000), 706 (citation omitted). The early British legal positivist John Austin also takes an integrative approach in his “Note on Interpretation”:

“The interpreter seeking the meaning annexed to the words by custom, may not be able to determine it; or he may not be able to find in it, when he has determined or assumed it, any determinate sense that the legislature may have attached to them: And, on either of these suppositions, he may seek in other indicia, the intention which the legislature held.”

John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence ed. Robert Campbell, 3rd. ed. (London: John Murray, 1869), II: 1024.↩

30. Justice David H. Souter, “Text of Justice David Souter's Speech,” The Harvard Gazette (27 May 2010) [Accessed 23 October 2025]↩

31. M.A.R. Habib, Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 31.↩

32. Roy Schafer, The Analytic Attitude (1983 London: Karnac Books and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1993), 6, 47, 167-168.↩

33. Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 123.↩

34 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method trans. J. Weinsheimer and D.G. Marshall (1960 London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 282.↩

35. W.V.O. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass: The M.I.T. Press, 1960), 59.↩

36. Quine, Word and Object, 58.↩

37. W.V.O. Quine refers to this one short passage of Neil Wilson's paper:

“… the Principle of Charity. We select as designatum that individual which will make the largest possible number of … statements true.” [Neil L. Wilson”Substances without Substrata,” The Review of Metaphysics 12 no. 4 (June, 1959), 532. JSTOR]

Wilson's version of the principle foreshadows Donald Davidson's principle of rational accommodation:

”We select as designatum that individual which will make the largest possible number of … statements true.” [Donald Davidson, “Three Varieties of Knowledge (1991),” Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 211.doi: 10.1093/0198237537.003.0014]

On the whole, then, the principle of charity requires an translation or interpretation maximizing agreement, coherence, or consistency, but not necessarily requiring consistency on any specific statement.↩

38. Donald Davidson, “Expressing Evaluations (1984),” in Problems of Rationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 35. doi: 10.1093/0198237545.003.0002" ↩

39. Donald Davidson, “Three Varieties of Knowledge,” (1991) in Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 221.↩

40. Donald Davidson, “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge (1983),” Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 150. doi: 10.1093/0198237537.003.0010"↩

41. Donald Davidson, “A Coherence Theory,” 150. ↩

42. “Ceteris paribus” or “Other things being equal” implies initially assuming the absence of instances of absurdity, deception, ignorance, or fallibility for the moment as unreliability would become discernible through incoherence and falsity in due time when evaluated.↩

43. Davidson writes, “The methodological problem of interpretation is to see how, given the sentences a man accepts as true under given circumstances, to work out what his beliefs are and what his words mean.” Donald Davidson, Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation (1984 New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 162.↩

44. E.g., Richard Grandy states his pragmatic constraint entitled the principle of humanity improves upon the constraint of rationality.↩

45. Davidson writes, “[T]the Principle of Charity … counsels us quite generally to prefer theories of interpretation that minimize disagreement.” Donald Davidson, Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation (1984 New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), xvii.↩

46 David Wong writes:

“On the principle of charity, we render others intelligible by analogizing from the body of beliefs, desires, and values we ourselves have adopted.[p. 6]

If we find that the acknowledged, overriding system for another group bears very little resemblance with respect to substantial content to our own acknowledged, overriding system, we have a problem. If we see the adherents of that other code to be striving after things so different from what we understand ourselves to be pursuing, we might well suspect that we have not understood these people.[p. 11]

To attribute massive error to them is to undermine a crucial assumption of interpretation: that they are forming beliefs about the same world we are. [p. 13]

David Wong, Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 83.doi: 0.1093/0195305396.001.0001↩

47. Donald Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme (1974),” in Truth and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984),197.doi: 10.1093/0199246297.003.0013 ↩

48.. Richard Grandy. “Reference, Meaning, and Belief,” The Journal of Philosophy 70 no. 14 (August, 1973). 439-452. doi: 10.2307/2025108↩

49. E.g, Quine writes, “For certainly, the more absurd or exotic the beliefs imputed to a people, the more suspicious we are entitled to be of the translations …” Word and Object, 69. And Davidson writes, “[T]the Principle of Charity … counsels us quite generally to prefer theories of interpretation that minimize disagreement.” Donald Davidson, Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation (1984 New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).xvii).↩

50. Daniel Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013), 38. Dennett acerbically comments about Rapoport's rules:

“It is worth reminding yourself that a heroic attempt to find a defensible interpretation of an author, if it comes up empty, can be even more devastating than an angry hatchet job. I recommend it.” [p. 39]

Nevertheless, many informal logicians affirm that charity is out of place in a debate. The original source of Dennett's summary is in Anatol Rapoport, “The Ethics of Debate,” in Fights, Games, and Debates (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960), 245-309, where Rapoport sets forth the notion of “empathetic understanding” in delineating “the domain of validity” for each side of an argument. [p. 247]↩

51. Daniel Dennett, “Midterm Examination: Compare and Contrast,” in The Intentional Stance (Boston: MIT Press, 1987). 342-343.↩

52. Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language, and Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 270.↩

53. Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense (1873),” in The Complete Works of Nietzsche: Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays trans. Maximilian A. Mügge (T.N. Foulis: London: 1911), II: 180.↩

54. Laurie M. Brown, ed., Selected Papers of Richard Feynman (With Commentary), vol. 27 World Scientific Series in 20th Century Physics (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2000), 12.↩

55.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground trans. Constance Garnett in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Meridian Books, 1989), 67.↩

56. Quine, Word and Object, 59.↩

57. Swami Vivekananda, “Human Representations of the Divine Ideal of Love, ”The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Partha Sinha, 2019), 583. ↩

58. Hiam G. Ginnot, Between Parent and Child, rev. Alice Ginott and H. Wallace Goddard (1965 New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 8.↩

Maija Aalto-Heinilä, “Fairness in Statutory Interpretation: Text, Purpose or Intention,” International Journal of Legal Discourse 1 no. 1 (May 2016), 193-211.doi: 10:1515/ijld-2016-004

Günter Abel, “Indeterminacy and Interpretation,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 37 no. 4 (1994), 403-419. doi: 10.1080/00201749408602363

Jonathan E. Adler, “Charity, Interpretation, Fallacy,” Informal Logic 29 no. 4 (1996), 329-343. doi: 10.3366/jsp.2016.0114

Jonathan E. Adler, “Why Be Charitable?,” Informal Logic 4 no. 2 (May, 1982), 15-16.doi: 10.22329/il.v4i2.2769

Adam Weller Gur Arye, “Reid's Principle of Credulity as a Principle of Charity,” Journal of Scottish Philosophy 14 no. 1 (2016), 69-83. doi: 10.3366/jsp.2016.0114

Daniel N. Boone, “The Cogent Reasoning Model of Informal Fallacies,” Informal Logic 19 no. 1 (1999), 1-39. doi: 10.22329/il.v19i1.2313

Tracy Bowell and Gary Kemp, Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide 3rd ed. (2002 New York: Routledge, 2010), 56-60.

Alan Brinton, “Analysis of Argument Strategies of Attack and Cooption: Stock Cases, Formalization, and Argument Reconstruction,” Informal Logic 17 no. 2 (Spring, 1995), 249-258. doi: 10.22329/il.v17i2.2412

María Rosario Hernández Borges, “The Principle of Charity, Transcendentalism and Relativism,” The Proceedings of the Twenty-First Wold Congress of Philosophy 6 (2007), 69-75. doi: 10.5840/wcp2120076186

Anthony Brueckner, “Moore-Paradoxicality and the Principle of Charity,” Theoria 75 no. 3 (2009), 245-247. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2009.01042.x"

Maria Caamaño, “Davidson's Argument for the Principle of Charity,” in Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy eds. Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone Chichester, UK: (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 367-369. doi: 10.1002/9781444344431.ch98

T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments 6th ed. (2005 Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009), 7, 19-20.

Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 27; 101; 136-137; 152-153; 159; 168-169; 196-197; 200-2001. doi: 10.1093/0199246297.001.0001

Donald Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47 (1973-1974), 5-20. doi: 10.5840/apapa2013236

Donald Davidson, “Radical Interpretation,” Dialectics 27 no. 3-4 (December 1973), 313-328. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.1973.tb00623.x

Johathan Davis, “A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion” A useful summary of twelve principles for open discussion in Usenet debates which is drawn from T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning 6th ed. (2005 Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009), 7, 19-20.

Peter Davson-Galle, ““Interpreting Arguments and Judging Issues,” Informal Logic 11 no. 1 (Winter, 1989), 41-45. doi:10.22329/il.v11i1.2616

Daniel Dohrn, “Interpretive Charity and Content Externalism,”unpublished manuscript

Robert Fogelin, “Charitable Reconstruction and Logical Neutrality,” Informal Logic 4 no. 3 (January, 1984), 2-5. doi: 10.22329/il.v4i3.2772

M. Finocchiaro, “Fallacies and the Evaluation of Reasoning,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 18 no. 1 (March, 1981), 13-22. doi: 10.2307/20013887

Gareth Fitzgerald, “Charity and Humanity in the Philosophy of Language,” Praxis 1 no. 2 (Autumn 2008), 17-29.

Yiu-ming Fung, “Davidson's Charity in the Context of Chinese Philosophy,”in Davidson's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Consructive Engagement ed. Bo Mou (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006), 117-162. doi: 10.1002/9781444344431.ch98 HKUST Institutional Repository

Christopher Gauker, “The Principle of Charity,” Synthese 69 no. 1 (October, 1986), 1-25. doi: 10.1007/bf01988284

David Glidden, “Augustine's Hermeneutics and the Principle of Charity,” Ancient Philosophy 17 no. 1 (1997), 135-157.doi: 10.5840/ancientphil199717123

Kathrin Glüer, “The Status of Charity I: Conceptual Truth or A Posteriori Necessity?,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 no. 3 (September, 2006), 337-359. doi: 10.1080/09672550600858320

Nathaniel Goldberg, “The Principle of Charity,” Dialogue (Fall, 2004), 671-683. doi: 10.1017/S001221730000398X

Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument (Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), 51-52.

Trudy Govier, “Uncharitable Thoughts about Charity,” Informal Logic 4 no. 1 (November, 1981), 5-6. doi: 10.22329/il.v4i1.2761

Richard Grandy, “ Reference, Meaning, and Belief,” The Journal of Philosophy 70 no. 14 (August, 1973), 439-452.doi: 10.2307/2025108

H.P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics eds. P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975), 41-58.

Moria Gutteridge, “‘First Sit Down and Play the Piano Beautifully …’Reading Carefully for Critical Thinking,” Informal Logic 9 no. 2-3 (Spring-Fall, 1987), 81-91. doi: 10.22329/il.v9i2.2664

H. V. Hansen, “An Informal Logic Bibliography,” Informal Logic 12 (1990), 181. [155-184]. doi: 10.22329/il.v12i3.2611

David K. Henderson, “Epistemic Rationality, Epistemic Motivation and Interpretive Charity,” ProtoSociology 8-9 (1996), 4-29.doi: 10.5840/protosociology19968/91

David K. Henderson, “The Importance of Explanation in Quine's Principle of Charity in Translation,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 18 no. 3 (September, 1988), 355-369. doi: 10.1177/004839318801800304

David K. Henderson, “The Principle of Charity and the Problem of Irrationality (Translation and the Problem of Irrationality),” Synthese 73 no. 2 (November, 1987), 225-252. doi: 10.1007/BF00484741

David K. Henderson, “Winch and the Constraints on Interpretation: Versions of the Principle of Charity,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 25 no. 2 (1987), 153-173. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-6962.1987.tb01614.x

Henry Jackman, “Charity, Self-Interpretation, and Belief,” Journal of Philosophical Research 28 (2003) 143-168. doi: 10.5840/jpr_2003_20

Dale Jacquette, “Charity and the Reiteration Problem for Enthymemes,” Informal Logic 18 no. 1 (Winter, 1996), 1-15. doi: 10.22329/il.v18i1.2364

Ralph H. Johnson, “Charity Begins at Home,” Informal Logic 3 no. 3 (January, 1984), 4-9. doi: 10.22329/il.v3i3.2791

Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair, ”Informal Logic and the Reconfiguration of Logic,” in Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical, ed. Dov M. Gaggay et al. (Elsevier, 2002), 368-369; [339-396] doi: 10.1016/s1570-2464(02)80010-6

Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair, Logical Self-Defense (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1977), 15, 17, 29, 34, 41, 66.

R. H. Johnson, “The New Logic Course: The State of the Art in Non-Formal Methods of Argument Analysis,” Informal Logic 4 no. 2 (1981), 123-143.

Saul A. Kripke, “A Puzzle About Belief Meaning and Use (Dordrecht, Netherlands, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1979), 239-288. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-4104-4_13

Daniel Laurier, “On the Principle of Charity and the Sources of Indeterminacy,” in Consciousness and Intentionality: Models and Modalities of Attribution ed. Denis Fisette (Dordrecht: Springer Netherland, 1999), 229-248. doi: 10.1007/978-94-015-9193-5_11

Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, &lduo;The Justification of the Principle of Charity,” in Donald Davidson Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 198-208. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195145397.003.0018

Marcin Lewiński, “The Paradox of Charity,” Informal Logic 32 no. 4 (2012), 403-439. doi: 10.22329/il.v32i4.3620

Kirk Ludwig, “Rationality, Language, and the Principle of Charity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 343-362. doi: 10.1093/0195145399.003.0018

J. E. Malpas, “The Nature of Interpretative Charity,” Dialectica 42 no. 1 (1988), 17-36. doi: 10.1111/dltc.1988.42.issue-1

John F. Manning, “What Divides Textualist from Purposivists?,” Columbia Law Review 106 no.1 (January, 2006), 70-111. JSTOR

Rita C. Manning, “A More Charitable Principle of Charity,” Informal Logic 5 no. 2 (1981), 20-21. doi: 10.22329/il.v5i2.2752"

Randal Marlin, “The Rhetoric of Action Description: Ambiguity in Intentional Reference,” Informal Logic 6 no. 3 (Fall, 1984) 26-29. doi: 10.22329/il.v6i3.2737

Andrew Melnyk, “What Do Philosophers Know? A Critical Study of Williamson's ‘The Philosophy of Philosophy’,” Grazer Philosophische Studien 80 no. 1 (2010), 297-307.

Kathryn J. Norlock, “Receptivity as a Virtue of (Practitioners of) Argumentation,” Virtues of Argumentation: Proceedings of he 10th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation 10 (May, 2013), 1-7.

Peter Pagin, “The Status of Charity II. Charity, Probability, and Simplicity,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 no. 3 (September, 2006), 361-383. doi: 10.1080/09672550600868683

Carlo Penco, “Truth, Assertion and Charity,” unpublished (2008), 1-11.

Phyllis Rooney, “Commentary on: Kathryn J. Norlock's ‘Receptivity as a Virtue of (Practitioners of Argumentation’,” Virtues of Argumentation: Proceedings of he 10th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation 10 (May, 2013), 1-3.

Paul Saka, “Spurning Charity,” Axiomathes 17 no. 2 (July, 2007), 197-208. doi: 10.1007/s10516-006-9000-x"

Thomas Schwartz, “Logic and Substance: A Reply to Fogelin,” Informal Logic 4 no. 3 (1981)5. doi: 10.22329/il.v4i3.2774

Michael Scriven, Reasoning (Englewood Cliffs, N,J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1973), 71-72.

N. Shanks, “On Davidson's Principle of Charity,” Philosophical Inquiry 3 no. 3-4 (Summer/Fall1981), 167-181. doi: 10.5840/philinquiry198133/410

Neven Sesardić, “Psychology Without Principle of Charity,” Dialectica 40 no. 3 (September, 1986), 229-240. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.1986.tb01535.x

Roy Sorensen, “Charity Implies Meta-Charity,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 no. 2 (March 2004), 290 -315. doi: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00342.x

E. Stein, Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science (Oxford: Clarendon,1996), 24, 112-136, 271, 195.

Tom Stern, “‘Some Third Thing’: Nietzsche's Words and the Principle of Charity,” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47 no. 2 (Summer, 2016), 287-302. doi: 10.5325/jnietstud.47.2.0287

Göan Sundholm, “Brouwer's Anticipation of the Principle of Charity,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series 85 no. 1 (1984), 145-146. doi: 10.1093/aristotelian/85.1.263

Göan Sundholm, “Brouwer's Anticipation of the Principle of Charity,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series 85 no. 1 (1985), 263-276. doi: 10.1093/aristotelian/85.1.263

Paul Thagard and Richard E. Nisbett, “Rationality and Charity,” Philosophy of Science 50 (1983), 250-267.

Ted Toadvine, “Hermeneutics and the Principle of Explicablility,” Auslegung 20 no. 2 (June, 1995), 59-75. doi: 10.17161/AJP.1808.9402

Evert Vedung, “Systematic Interpetation and the Principle of Charity,” Informal Logic 21-22.

Bruce Vermazen, “General Beliefs and the Principle of Charity,” Philosophical Studies 42 no. 1 (July, 1982), 111-118. doi: 10.1007/BF00372844

Timothy Williamson, “Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Knowledge,” The Philosophical Quarterly 55 no. 219 (April 2005), 213-235. doi: 10.1111/j.0031-8094.2005.00396.x

Timothy Williamson, “Philosophical ‘Intuitions’ and Scepticism about Judgement,” Dialectica 58 no. 1 (June 2005), 109-153 doi: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.2004.tb00294.x

David Wong, Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 83.doi: 10.1093/0195305396.001.0001

Chuang Ye, “The Limit of Charity and Agreement,” Frontiers of Philosophy in China 3 no. 1 (March, 2008), 99-122. doi: 10.1007/s11466-008-0007-9